4 ms·

Expensive and desirable locations - sure, but we are speaking of mass society, of everyone - everyone in the U.S. is dependent on cars, not just people in "expe

Expensive and desirable locations - sure, but we are speaking of mass society, of everyone - everyone in the U.S. is dependent on cars, not just people in "expensive and desirable locations". These actually have less of that dependence. This idea have been marketed and for a good reason, it was good way to save U.S. population from Soviet nuclear threat - in a way Coomies could neither counter, nor replicate on their side - when Commies launch their nukes, it's much better if most people find themselves in separate houses with large tracts of land and little combustible materials, and good basements to protect from fallout, and in a few days, can emerge from there and drive their cars in whichever direction civil defense points as safer.

itsnevereasy 7y ago
That’s an interesting claim that I haven’t heard before — do you have any sources discussing this that I can read?
- anovikov 7y ago
  https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today.html https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-cause...
- sandworm101 7y ago
  A mobile and well-resourced population is a cornerstone of US disaster planning. When a hurricane is comming and an evacuation order given, the assumption is that most americans can drive themselves. Mass transit is cool, but evacuating an entire modern city on busses isnt viable. (Inter-city rail connections cannot be scaled up in such times.)
  - jeromegv 7y ago
    Makes no sense. You can’t evacuate a full city on cars. It would get clogged all the way. You would want to use the entire bus system. Don’t know why you say it’s not viable, you can scale up passenger/meters much more with buses.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      No you can't. The problem is we don't have enough buses to do that. Every mass bus system large enough to have significant people on the bus works on the model of the bus running all day with a large number of people who use it. That is it goes in full, heads back out, and picks up more people before heading back in. In the evacuation model those buses drive out a day full, and then need to drive a day to get back before they can pick up more people. It just doesn't work. No transit system has enough buses. That is before we point out that if you have anywhere near that many people served you probably have some rail systems that cannot operate outside their lines (third rail power or overhead electric) Cars have the advantage of there are enough of them. Note that in most evacuation situations the cars are full. (the roads don't have the capacity, but the cars do)
      - jeromegv 7y ago
        What are you suggesting exactly? I don't quite grasp your point We shouldn't use bus when they are available for evacuation? Why? If we can get all the bus to be used + add bus from other cities nearby, why should we prevent people from using them? This is scaling much better and people with cars are free to leave with their own cars. "Cars have the advantage of there are enough of them." --Surely not the case in many urban cities.
        bluGill 7y ago
        I'm suggesting that all the buses in the city, are not enough to make a significant dent in the evacuation needs. This would be the case even if all transit in the city was by bus (no train/subway, and no private cars - obviously this is unrealistic).
      - shkkmo 7y ago
        It is much easier to stage extra buses near areas that will need rapid evacuation then it is to scale up road infrastructure. There is a fixed limit on howany people can be moved by car out of major metropolitan areas, conversely, most major metropolitan areas are with 12 hours drive of other major metropolitan bus areas which means that well staged buses could easily arrive to rapidly scale evacuation speed. Finally, as car based evacuation reaches it's limit, the rate dramatically decreases, there is no such issue with buses.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    The disaster planning argument is a huge red herring. I've yet to see my home city evacuated like you're saying for any reason. Whereas I've spent the last 17 years driving around everywhere for lack of any other options. So it seems to me like disaster planning is something we would have time to think about even if my city replaced all of our cars with trains and buses. So it just doesn't seem very important.
bobthepanda 7y ago
This is not really a thing; pretty much every hurricane and wildfire evacuation has shown that car infrastructure is extremely bad for evacuation.
- anovikov 7y ago
  If you need to evacuate everyone at once, sure. But they would evacuate gradually over many days from ~4 days to ~2 weeks from the attack, basically as soon as they will become desperate running out of drinkable water (something a house with a heater tank in the attic is also a good thing for). No public infrastructure will work for that - bus drivers will quickly die of radiation sickness or just refuse to do their work, but for one, one-way trip to save your own ass it's okay. Essentially, this is why suburbanisation come to being: war planners realized exactly the thing you are pointing out: that evacuating people in a crisis - while the Soviet bombers will be flying (it was before ICBMs) was an impractical idea, it will kill more people than it will save; but what works instead, is to evacuate people in advance: just make them live far from city centers which can be attacked. And redline the city centers: let only people you don't care about surviving, live there. In 1950s Soviet Union, "workers and peasants" lived in villages and suburbs, these were replaceable anyway and killing them had little benefit. Difficult to replace cadres - engineers, most qualified workers, high ranking military, Party officials and such - lived in posh Stalinist apartments in city centers, and would perish inevitably. In 1950s U.S., it was already other way around. Soviet Union could do nothing about that: they simply couldn't afford an individual house, and thus inevitably, individual car, for everyone - they still can't. It was a clear win and moved a balance in the Cold War a great lot in U.S. favor. One thing to realize here, it will best of all work if U.S. attacked first - then they choose the timing and attack in late evening in the U.S. when everyone is at home already, are warned, and don't leave their houses in the morning to avoid being caught in road panic, and have some hours to prepare for the Commie attack such as letting go of any combustibles, covering car so it doesn't suck fallout particles in, and stocking water and if possible, food.
  - turk73 7y ago
    I really don't believe that US suburbs were created in an effort to ward off Soviet nuclear strategy. I more readily believe that US "elite" would know of an imminent attack and deliberately not notify anyone but rather escape to their private bunkers. That's seems like a far more plausible scenario given the Satanic nature of the US oligarchy.

itsnevereasy 7y ago

That’s an interesting claim that I haven’t heard before — do you have any sources discussing this that I can read?

anovikov 7y ago
https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today.html https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-cause...
sandworm101 7y ago
A mobile and well-resourced population is a cornerstone of US disaster planning. When a hurricane is comming and an evacuation order given, the assumption is that most americans can drive themselves. Mass transit is cool, but evacuating an entire modern city on busses isnt viable. (Inter-city rail connections cannot be scaled up in such times.)
- jeromegv 7y ago
  Makes no sense. You can’t evacuate a full city on cars. It would get clogged all the way. You would want to use the entire bus system. Don’t know why you say it’s not viable, you can scale up passenger/meters much more with buses.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    No you can't. The problem is we don't have enough buses to do that. Every mass bus system large enough to have significant people on the bus works on the model of the bus running all day with a large number of people who use it. That is it goes in full, heads back out, and picks up more people before heading back in. In the evacuation model those buses drive out a day full, and then need to drive a day to get back before they can pick up more people. It just doesn't work. No transit system has enough buses. That is before we point out that if you have anywhere near that many people served you probably have some rail systems that cannot operate outside their lines (third rail power or overhead electric) Cars have the advantage of there are enough of them. Note that in most evacuation situations the cars are full. (the roads don't have the capacity, but the cars do)
    - jeromegv 7y ago
      What are you suggesting exactly? I don't quite grasp your point We shouldn't use bus when they are available for evacuation? Why? If we can get all the bus to be used + add bus from other cities nearby, why should we prevent people from using them? This is scaling much better and people with cars are free to leave with their own cars. "Cars have the advantage of there are enough of them." --Surely not the case in many urban cities.
      - bluGill 7y ago
        I'm suggesting that all the buses in the city, are not enough to make a significant dent in the evacuation needs. This would be the case even if all transit in the city was by bus (no train/subway, and no private cars - obviously this is unrealistic).
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      It is much easier to stage extra buses near areas that will need rapid evacuation then it is to scale up road infrastructure. There is a fixed limit on howany people can be moved by car out of major metropolitan areas, conversely, most major metropolitan areas are with 12 hours drive of other major metropolitan bus areas which means that well staged buses could easily arrive to rapidly scale evacuation speed. Finally, as car based evacuation reaches it's limit, the rate dramatically decreases, there is no such issue with buses.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  The disaster planning argument is a huge red herring. I've yet to see my home city evacuated like you're saying for any reason. Whereas I've spent the last 17 years driving around everywhere for lack of any other options. So it seems to me like disaster planning is something we would have time to think about even if my city replaced all of our cars with trains and buses. So it just doesn't seem very important.

bobthepanda 7y ago

This is not really a thing; pretty much every hurricane and wildfire evacuation has shown that car infrastructure is extremely bad for evacuation.

anovikov 7y ago
If you need to evacuate everyone at once, sure. But they would evacuate gradually over many days from ~4 days to ~2 weeks from the attack, basically as soon as they will become desperate running out of drinkable water (something a house with a heater tank in the attic is also a good thing for). No public infrastructure will work for that - bus drivers will quickly die of radiation sickness or just refuse to do their work, but for one, one-way trip to save your own ass it's okay. Essentially, this is why suburbanisation come to being: war planners realized exactly the thing you are pointing out: that evacuating people in a crisis - while the Soviet bombers will be flying (it was before ICBMs) was an impractical idea, it will kill more people than it will save; but what works instead, is to evacuate people in advance: just make them live far from city centers which can be attacked. And redline the city centers: let only people you don't care about surviving, live there. In 1950s Soviet Union, "workers and peasants" lived in villages and suburbs, these were replaceable anyway and killing them had little benefit. Difficult to replace cadres - engineers, most qualified workers, high ranking military, Party officials and such - lived in posh Stalinist apartments in city centers, and would perish inevitably. In 1950s U.S., it was already other way around. Soviet Union could do nothing about that: they simply couldn't afford an individual house, and thus inevitably, individual car, for everyone - they still can't. It was a clear win and moved a balance in the Cold War a great lot in U.S. favor. One thing to realize here, it will best of all work if U.S. attacked first - then they choose the timing and attack in late evening in the U.S. when everyone is at home already, are warned, and don't leave their houses in the morning to avoid being caught in road panic, and have some hours to prepare for the Commie attack such as letting go of any combustibles, covering car so it doesn't suck fallout particles in, and stocking water and if possible, food.
- turk73 7y ago
  I really don't believe that US suburbs were created in an effort to ward off Soviet nuclear strategy. I more readily believe that US "elite" would know of an imminent attack and deliberately not notify anyone but rather escape to their private bunkers. That's seems like a far more plausible scenario given the Satanic nature of the US oligarchy.